Algae drive convergent bacterial community assembly at low dilution frequency.

Microbial community assembly is a complex dynamical process that determines community structure and function. The interdependence of inter-species interactions and nutrient availability presents a challenge for understanding community assembly. We sought to understand how external nutrient supply rate modulated interactions to affect the assembly process.

An ensemble approach to the structure-function problem in microbial communities.

The metabolic activity of microbial communities plays a primary role in the flow of essential nutrients throughout the biosphere. Molecular genetics has revealed the metabolic pathways that model organisms utilize to generate energy and biomass, but we understand little about how the metabolism of diverse, natural communities emerges from the collective action of its constituents. We propose that quantifying and mapping metabolic fluxes to sequencing measurements of genomic, taxonomic, or transcriptional variation across an ensemble of diverse communities, either in the laboratory or in the wild, can reveal low-dimensional descriptions of community structure that can explain or predict their emergent metabolic activity.

Closed microbial communities self-organize to persistently cycle carbon.

Cycles of nutrients (N, P, etc.) and resources (C) are a defining emergent feature of ecosystems. Cycling plays a critical role in determining ecosystem structure at all scales, from microbial communities to the entire biosphere.